Espresso Systems engaged Runtime Verification, Inc. to audit the staking component and smart contract code of the Espresso Network, reviewing the Solidity implementation and business logic for potential vulnerabilities.

Espresso is a decentralized sequencing infrastructure for Ethereum rollups, providing a shared Byzantine fault-tolerant confirmation layer via HotShot consensus. It enables sub-second transaction confirmations with verifiable finality through SNARK proofs on Ethereum L1. Rollups use namespaces to extract transactions from the shared ledger, with proofs of inclusion, and the network supports both ZK and optimistic rollups. An escape hatch allows rollups to switch to backup sequencers if consensus liveness is lost, ensuring fast, verifiable, and composable transaction ordering.

The three week audit, starting from November 5th to November 19th, included a walkthrough, manual Solidity review, and formal verification with Kontrol to check properties across symbolic state transitions.